The Current Best Available Technologies in the US for arsenic removal are most effective in treating As (V). As (III) can be converted to As (V) using chlorine, potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide and ozone.

ENN Daily News (5th May 1999) had an article about two researchers from the Center for Environmental Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, who have come up with a low-cost, easy-to-implement method of removing arsenic from water that could serve an immediate need in Bangladesh.

The process uses direct coprecipitation and iron-oxide based coagulants. It involves adding inexpensive and readily-available chemicals to well water, mixing it up and then straining the water through a sand filter. The process has been able to reduce arsenic levels in water from 600 micrograms per litre to less than 50 micrograms per litre.

The process is quite standard in terms of water treatment but has an enhanced value -- the use of simple products that are readily available to the Bangladesh citizens including two-litre cabonated drink bottles.

It is believed that 30 million people in Bangladesh are affected by naturally occurring arsenic contamination in their drinking water. About 1.2 million of those people are severely affected. Water wells in 59 of Bangladesh's 64 districts are contaminated, according to Dainichi Consultant Inc. of Gifu, Japan.